Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Kean: Yes. You’ll see a little bit more of this, Brian. But, what you’re seeing when we have a backlog that’s $3.3 billion, and we’re executing it at 3.4x EBITDA multiples is that our network is well positioned, and we’re able to make relatively modest capital efficient investments in our grid to expand, to serve the supply and demand growth that we’re seeing across the network. And so, that’s — in the past, we had big long-haul projects that might have been done at a slightly higher multiple, still attractive returns. But I think this shows you the fact that we have dozens of projects that we’re doing and a relatively modest capital expenditures each but with really nice returns that we are finding that our network is extremely well positioned for the growth along end.

Brian Reynolds: Great. I appreciate the color. And as my one follow-up, I just wanted to get a little bit of an update on just the RNG projects and the CapEx that are progressing through 2023. How are those projects progressing? And just as the RNG market starts to mature in the middle of the decade or end of the decade, curious if you continue to see new opportunities within that Kinetrex business and if you see continued CapEx for the next few years.

Anthony Ashley: Yes. So, we have three of our original RNG projects that came through the Kinetrex acquisition, that will be in service this year. Two of them really in the first half of this year. There is one on EPC contract. So that capital is fully baked into our 2023 budget. And then, with regards to future opportunities, we’ve — obviously, we’ve made three acquisitions to date. I think we are looking to grow fairly organically at this point in time. I think, there are opportunities out there to grow, and we’ll be looking at those on an individual basis. The EPA did come out with a new proposal recently, which opens up a new demand market for us. And so, there may be some opportunities there to convert some of these assets into electric service as well. So, I think there’s lots of different opportunities that we’re looking at right now in that space. We’re excited about growth.

Operator: The next question is from Keith Stanley with Wolfe Research.

Keith Stanley: Congrats to Kim and Steve as well. I wanted to start, Steve, you said the backlog is at $3.3 billion now. So, that’s up another $600 million or $700 million since last quarter, which presumably, that’s why the growth CapEx of $2.1 billion for this year was higher than what you kind of pointed to initially. Can you talk to any of the specific projects you’ve added since last quarter because that is a decent amount?

Steve Kean: Yes. So, we have some — most of it is going to be in gas and in RNG, on a percentage basis, I think I can give you that. 64% is in gas and in RNG related, a little bit more than that maybe. And so this is — it’s a mix of power demand, LDC demand, LNG transport and G&P and well connects. And as I said, it’s a collection of a lot of smaller projects and mostly buildups of the existing network, which again makes them capital efficient. It reduces the execution risk on them. And it tends to give us — we get as best return as we can that’s available for the market. We tend to end up with better returns on the capital we deploy when that’s the composition of the project. So, yes, $3.3 billion and again at 3.4x and kind of concentrated in our low carbon, including natural gas.

Kim Dang: Yes. And a number of the projects that got added to the backlog are in the other news, like part of the Evangeline Pass project, the TVA project, the terminals renewable diesel projects. So those are some of the projects that got added to the backlog in the quarter.